ORLANDO, Fla. – Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell is once again in a back-and-forth with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, this time over the sentencing of a man who shot at his ex-girlfriend in a drive-thru.
Uthmeier shared a video Tuesday morning on X lambasting what he continues to call Worrell’s soft-on-crime policies, bringing up the 2022 case of Alain Barrett.
Barrett, now 26, was arrested to face charges of attempted first- and second-degree murder after allegedly targeting his ex-girlfriend and shooting at her at least 12 times after finding her in a car with a man at a Krystal near Orlando.
While the mandatory-minimum sentence for attempted first-degree murder is 20 years, Barrett took a plea deal and was sentenced in August to 10 years in prison. Records show he pleaded no contest to an amended charge of attempted second-degree murder and to shooting at, within or into an occupied vehicle, as well as that no action was taken on the original attempted second-degree murder charge.
”Some of these bullets went into the car. One got lodged in the headrest directly behind her head. This was first-degree attempted murder, but State Attorney Worrell pled it down to a second-degree offense without a firearm," Uthmeier said Tuesday. “She waived the mandatory minimums in the case, overriding the will of our state legislature and their desire to see dangerous criminals behind bars for as long as possible. Now, the people of Orlando will be fortunate to see this guy face 10 years behind bars.”
[WATCH BELOW: Monique Worrell responds to AG’s criticisms]
Worrell said Uthmeier was building “another political witch hunt to overturn the will of the voters,” referencing when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis removed her from office in 2023 while accusing her of “refusing to faithfully enforce the laws of Florida.“ Worrell got the job back in the November election after defeating Andrew Bain, whom DeSantis appointed to replace her.
“The legislature has not prohibited the waiver of minimum mandatory sentences; on the contrary, the legislature has implemented a process that requires documentation for minimum mandatory waivers. That process was followed in this case,” Worrell said in a statement Tuesday. “A downward departure from the lowest permissible sentence is prohibited unless some circumstances or factors reasonably justify the downward departure. This case met the criteria for several factors. If the attorney general does not like the law as written, he should take those concerns to the legislature and stop wasting taxpayer resources on baseless political attacks and attempts to interfere with this office.”
Worrell’s response included an August memorandum outlining her office’s decision to offer the plea deal, stating in part that Barrett was remorseful and acted impulsively, required treatment for a mental disorder unrelated to substance abuse and was too young to understand the consequences of his actions.
Barrett was sentenced Aug. 21 to 10 years in prison with five years of probation and credit for 961 days time served, records show.
The exchange marks only the latest clash between the attorney general and the state attorney. They were back at it less than two weeks ago when Uthmeier accused her of freeing accused pedophiles in two separate cases that Worrell said were handled appropriately, one of them by Uthmeier’s office.
Even earlier last month, Uthmeier on Sept. 8 urged Worrell to withdraw the prosecution against a woman charged with murder in a deadly road-rage incident. Before that, they had dueling news conferences in April to address her office’s backlog of unprosecuted cases; Uthmeier criticized Worrell’s policy requiring law enforcement to make arrests in most cases before sending them to her office for possible prosecution, offering to lend several prosecutors from his own office to help.
During an update in August, Worrell said her office had made progress with the non-arrest backlog, announcing a five-year plan to fix things further. Her office had nearly 5,800 open cases at the time and only 12 felony attorneys to tackle them, she added.
Uthmeier’s position is up for grabs in the November General Election. He was appointed as Florida’s attorney general when the position was vacated by Ashley Moody, who filled Florida’s empty seat in the U.S. Senate after President Donald Trump tapped Marco Rubio to be the U.S. secretary of state.
[WATCH: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier repeats call for State Attorney Worrell to ‘do her job’]